Word: manors
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...Oxford graduate nervously fingered his blond, bristly mustache. With a good war record behind him (he had lost an eye in a Jap air raid on Burma), he had come to Stoke in search of a peacetime career. A "houseparty" exam at the government's 300-year-old manor house is now the way to get a topflight civil service job in England...
Ballroom Questionnaire. In the quiet grandeur of Stoke's ballroom, the candidates were greeted by Colonel J. R. Pinsent, 59, chairman of Britain's Civil Service Selection Board. Colonel Pinsent invited the candidates to patronize the manor-house bar (Scotch, 30? a nip) in their free time, added a warning: "Naturally, if you start wrecking the furniture, we would probably have some doubts as to your fitness for government service...
After looking on, U.S. Commissioner Flemming said he would consider a similar plan for the U.S. He didn't think the U.S. would be able to give candidates a weekend at a country manor, but "I think the idea of keeping the applicant under observation for two or three days, of permitting him to demonstrate his personality and capacity for leadership, is a very practical approach...
...Young reigned in France and Henry the Open-handed held Champagne," Alis of Puiseaux, a 14-year-old who knew "all the things a girl of noble blood must know," was married off. Her groom was musclebound, thick-skulled, 16-year-old Ansiau of Linnieres. In the smoky manor of Linnieres, the two families gorged themselves on staggering quantities of meat and wine...
...Hollywood. The married life of long-suffering Alis and oafish Ansiau is described in great, sometimes tedious detail. Miss Oldenbourg's canvas is wide but her stitches are painstakingly small. Heroine Alis settles down to yearly pregnancies, frequent miscarriages, and incessant worries about the financial decline of the manor, the fruits of which her self-indulgent husband squanders on pomp, tournaments and the Crusades. Before old age, each has one fierce extramarital fling -and two bastards are added to the brood of infants at gloomy Linnieres...